Chad Smith Drums in Hallowed Home Where Led Zeppelin Recorded

[sam_webmaster]

Chad Smith Drums in Hallowed Home Where Led Zeppelin Recorded

Chad Smith has now walked in the footsteps of Led Zeppelin. “Holy Grail of drum sounds,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer tweeted today, along with a video that shows him and Queen drummer Roger Taylor playing in Headley Grange, a private English residence where Zeppelin made some of their most famous recordings in the early ’70s. Smith was the first person to record drums there since his favorite drummer, Led Zep’s John Bonham, 40 years ago, according to his management.

Headley Grange is where Jimmy Page came up with “Stairway to Heaven.” More significant for drummers, it’s where Bonham and engineer Andy Johns recorded “When the Levee Breaks,” creating a sound that Queen’s Taylor describes in the video as “like thunder” and “the benchmark” that “so many people strived for.” Joining Smith and Taylor in the studio for the video is drummer Andy Gangadeen, who has played with British drum-and-bass duo Chase & Status as well as on Massive Attack‘s influential 1998 album Mezzanine.

The occasion for the drummers’ Headley Grange spiritual homecoming was a five-day set of recording sessions last summer, organized by sample library Spitfire Audio. Smith, Taylor and Gangadeen were there to create a set of loops, breaks, beats and hits for other musicians to use in their tracks. They recorded using a variety of modern and vintage mics and preamps, along with a 24-track, two-inch Studer tape deck.

“To be able to just look up and see the way the stairs go, just to be in that space and play those notes and be in this same air, goosebumps, man,” Smith says in the video. “It was amazing.” When he arrived at Headley Grange, he kissed the floor of the hall.

Besides Zeppelin, other bands that recorded at this rural manor house in the ’60s and ’70s included Genesis, Bad Company and Fleetwood Mac.

The title for the clip says it’s a teaser for NAMM, which is the National Association of Music Merchants trade show, held January 22 to January 25 in Anaheim, California. Let’s hope for more glimpses of the Grail next week, then.

As for Smith’s doppelganger, Will Ferrell, it’s been a few months since the two rekindled their The Tonight Show drum-off with a Rolling Stones cover in Seattle. And they might not be done.

“I can’t really expound upon details, but we have been talking about doing something [in 2015] that will combine music and comedy ­— a show,” Smith recently told Rolling Stone. “It will benefit the charities that we’re into. Plus, I think I need to redeem myself from how I was robbed of the Golden Cowbell. I don’t want to burst any bubbles, but he wasn’t even playing the drums, people! Shenanigans! Call the cops, I’ve been robbed! Yeah, so, it’s not over.” Guess this means they won’t invite Ferrell to the Grange?

http://www.wonderingsound.com/chad-smith-led-zeppelin-headley-grange-queen-roger-taylor-video/

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SO jealous!

[The Rover]

See this Music radar article

http://www.musicradar.com/news/drums/chad-smith-talks-led-zeppelin-and-the-grange-616375

Even though they told you they wanted you to be you, when you sit down at that kit and you’re in the same room that Bonham played in, does it make you play different – even a little?

“It affects you. Certainly when you sit down, you have to go [he imitates the When The Levee Breaks drum beat] – you have to! [Laughs] There’s no two ways about it. Acoustically, when you hear yourself playing in any space, it affects how you play; you react to what sounds good in that particular room. But then when you take into account what had been performed in this place all those years ago, yeah, that runs through your head."

From a sonic perspective, what is it about Headley Grange that renders such good drum sounds?

“It’s interesting. You go into the house, you see the stairwell, and then you notice that it’s not a really big space. You’d think from the Levee Breaks drum sound that it’d be this cavernous room, but it’s really quite small. It’s like this regular family-type foyer, and then the rooms spread off left and right. The stairs go up, but instead of being circular, they’re square, all the way up three floors. In the middle of that is a wooden beam with a chandelier to light up the rooms.

“I looked at that and went, ‘A-ha! The stairs and the beam are breaking up the sound.’ When you’re in a big flat room, it can be too hard sounding; when it breaks it up a bit, it can soften the sound. It was still hard wood floors – there was nothing really soft at all – and the stairs and that beam. It’s just one of those design things, a happy accident.

“With Headley Grange, because it’s that boomy, bigger, more resonant space, I thought the longer, slower grooves where notes can speak longer sounded better. To me, the faster stuff got a little lost. Not to say that it sounded bad, and on the Spitfire stuff you can take out the room, the close mics, and you’re still in that space – even close mics pick up the room. I did like the slower stuff because it really lent itself to what was so special about being in that stairwell. And it was more fun. [Laughs]

“You know, I talked to [producer/engineer] Andy Johns about this. He told me what everybody knows – Bonham brought in a new drum set, they set ‘em up, the guys went to the pub, and Andy put two mics down in the room, put Jimmy Page’s Italian echo thing on it, and boom, there’s the sound. Andy told me it was really simple and fast, and that was it.

“They recorded that for Levee Breaks, but when they recorded Misty Mountain Hop and Kashmir, they close-miked the kit for those songs. That’s the different sound. Levee Breaks is the two mics, and the other stuff is close-miked."

Did you play any other Bonham licks when you were in that room – just to amuse yourself?

“I think I probably played Rock And Roll – they recorded that one there. Did I play The Rover? They did that one there, too. [He imitates the opening drum lick to The Rover.] That’s so cool! Oh, and another thing about the place – there was that fireplace where Robert Plant wrote the lyrics to Stairway To Heaven. It’s in the main room where they cut the tracks. I think he sat down and boom, wrote 80 percent of it right there. So, of course, I sat where he sat. Who wouldn’t? [Laughs] It was this once-in-a-lifetime thing. I was so pleased and was just floating around all day.

“I talked to the owners of the house. They were really cool – old couple, been married awhile. The wife had received the house as a wedding present from her grandmother in 1969. That’s some present, huh? [Laughs] But it was always meant to be a boarding house for people who worked the farm.

“Talking to couple was interesting. They didn’t know anything about rock bands. The wife said, ‘There was one guy… rode motorcycles… He tore up the front yard a lot and was drunk. He tried to ride a pig.’ I was thinking, ‘Yeah, sounds like Bonham.’ [Laughs] She said that only one or two guys were around for Led Zeppelin III; she wasn’t sure about IV. But she said when they came back for Physical Graffiti there were girls and it was a little crazy; they tried to burn the piano or the banister or something like that. ‘Stairway To Heaven – I know what that’s about,’ she said. ‘That’s when they walk upstairs to the girls.’ I was like, ‘I’m not sure about that, but that’s OK.’ She had her own take on it.”

[Strider]

SO jealous!

Jealous doesn't even come close, haha. I tried to visit Headley Grange twice: In 1983 when I went over for the ARMS concert and in 1984 when I was on a birthday holiday in England for the Roy Harper & Jimmy Page show at the Cambridge Folk Festival. The first time I got lost and the second time nobody was home.

[Tangerina]

Love this part: "When he arrived at Headley Grange, he kissed the floor of the hall" Ha ha that is so great. How fun that he and Rodger got to do that. Hallowed hall indeed.